•Animal disease intelligence is the analysis of animal disease events and information on related environmental or economic variables to identify the causes or drivers of disease introduction and spread that may represent risks to animal and human health or people's livelihoods.

•Animal disease intelligence is essential for prevention of diseases in humans, livestock or wildlife.

•What is needed? Integration of national and regional data from animal and human demographic statistics, field and laboratory disease surveillance results, and environmental or agro-system variables with the existing global surveillance systems. This integration is essential to improve early and rapid disease detection, robust analyses, expedient warning and timely risk management.

Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme (GREP)

•GREP has achieved its objective - rinderpest, or cattle plague, has been eradicated from the face of the earth.

•The Director General of FAO will declare the end of field operations during the World Food Day (October 2010).

•A joint Global Declaration by FAO and OIE will be made in June 2011.

•Rinderpest will be the first animal disease to be declared as eradicated and the second in history after Smallpox (1980).

•Monitoring the world for any occurrence of rinderpest would still need to be required as well as ensuring proper custodianship of the virus and rinderpest vaccines.

• Combining laboratories and networks with public health, socioeconomic, wildlife conservation or communication professionals greatly increases the usefulness of these systems for policy makers involved in animal and human health.

Programme Against African Trypanosomiasis (PAAT)

• Trypanosomosis affects people and livestock, and lies at the heart of Africa’s struggle against hunger and poverty.

• Disease control is approached by means of concerted international planning and action, prioritized and problem-driven research, focused investments and interventions, integrated vector and disease control with the participation of local communities.

• PAAT tackles a major constraint to rural development in sub-Saharan Africa and thus promotes environmental sustainability and a more balanced use of natural resources.

• People play a vital role in the prevention and the emergence of animal diseases.

• Understanding and managing societal and institutional drivers of disease emergence, spread and maintenance is critical in developing appropriate approaches to disease prevention and control by the identification of critical control points for surveillance or intervention.

• These links are particularly important in developing countries where many people rely on animals for food, income, transportation, draught power, fuel and clothing.

• About 70 percent of the new human diseases that have appeared during the past decade originate from animals or from products of animal origin.

• Animal diseases that affect humans undermine the efficient production of food, particularly of high-quality protein and can create barriers to trade.

• The FAO VPH unit supports capacity development of countries for the effective prevention and control of diseases of animal origin that affect human health and well-being, at all stages from production to consumption.

Wildlife and Ecosystems

• The health of people, livestock, wildlife and the environment are intricately interconnected. The One Health approach addresses public health and pandemic disease concerns through multidisciplinary, cross-sectoral, multi-institutional cooperation.

• It is well known that wildlife can serve as the reservoir of certain diseases that impact livestock and human health, but the challenge remains in identifying and implementing actions that prevent disease transmission, enables wildlife conservation, and concurrently promotes food security and rural development.

• Wild birds have been implicated in the transmission of influenza viruses along their migratory routes and within diverse agroecological settings and their roles in the epidemiology of avian influenza viruses are currently being evaluated through surveillance, outbreak response activities, migration and ecology studies using satellite telemetry.